Oblivion tips and tricks (possible spoilers)

deicist

Just thought we could have a little thread detailing tips and tricks for oblivion, since everyone I know is loving this game.

First off, a good guide to tweaking the graphics:

Graphics tweaks

The official forums also have a few threads about tweaking the ini files, with some sample ones for download:

Elder Scrolls forums

There's a fantastic list of 'essential' mods here:

atomicpc.com.au

The unofficial elder scrolls wiki contains lots of information about...well, pretty much everything Elder scrolls related (good if you get stuck on any quests)

Uesp.net

And theres a really good interactive map which shows the location of everything in the game here:

The Avid Alchemist's obliv-o-map

and here's my little tip (this is where the spoiler comes in)

At the end of each section of oblivion, you take a sigil stone from the tower to close the gate. This Sigil stone can be used for enchanting weapons or armor. Hover over the stone and it shows you what attributes it has. What you might not know is those attributes are generated randomly when you first grab the stone. If you save just before grabbing it you can keep reloading and the stone will have different attributes, so just keep doing it til you find something you like. To enchant a weapon / piece of armor with the stone, just click the stone in your inventory.

deicist

Things I found on my travels:

Umbra, the kickass sword from Morrowind, has found it's way to one of the ruins near the imperial city

There's several large standing stones scattered around the place, if you activate them they give you one of the abilities granted to the 'star signs'. for example I found the tower stone, activating it gave me one of the abilities you get when born under the sign of the star.

Varla stones charge all the enchanted items in your inventory.

deicist

Another spoiler. Those standing stones I talked about in another post....well most of them are named after the astological 'signs' in Oblivion. There's one for the tower, which gives you the power 'Tower key' etc... but there's a few extra ones. I just found one and it gave me some really cool magical armor and a magical sword, so I assume the others do similar things

Thrax

Thought I'd give a clarification to Deicist's post.

At roughly level 13, you can get the fabled Umbra sword and a full suit of Ebony Armor from a woman concealed quite nimbly within the shadows of a dungeon called Vindasel (Southwest of Lakefront, ~7 o'clock on the road).. With an enchanted Daedra longsword you can get from creatures behind any of the later Oblivion Gates, you can hit hard enough to kill her. It counts as a murder, but you get a sword and a suit of armor that would make you wet your pants. You'll have a visit paid by a gentleman from the Dark Brotherhood - decline his offers if you wish, and then kill him as he leaves; you'll have no bounty, a clean record, and mind-numbing equipment.

Found this out with my pal when he was playing it on the 360 tonight (3/29/06) -- just read this thread today, now that I've started playing it.

deicist

Not really a spoiler, but just to be safe....

Oblivion planes can have more than one gate. For example, I went into one just outside the imperial city and saw another oblivion gate in there. It was really difficult to get to (had to hop over some lava) and when I went through it I was in Blackwood. I'm not sure of the significance of this (maybe the blackwood gate is near something cool) but it's interesting nonetheless.

deicist

another spoiler:

At some point you may want to do the Arena 'quests' ie: get yourself up to the rank of grand champion. To do this you're going to have to fight the current grand champion, the Grey Prince. He's quite hardcore, but there's an easy way to beat him. Sometime before you make it to champion rank speak to the grey prince (that's him practicing his swordplay in the bloodworks) and he'll give you quest to do. During this quest you find out the grey prince is half vampire. After you tell him this he becomes so depressed that when you finally fight him he won't fight back and after defeating him you get a rather swanky Elven sword

jradmin

Cyclonite wrote:

It opens up after the first little part, no worries. I think they did the uber-linear thing just to help you learn the controls and not be overwhelmed anymore than you already are.

By the way, I closed my first Oblivion gate yesterday. Any pointers for making a bit of money, so I can get some training? Well, any pointers in general at this juncture? Thanks! =)

Sell all the armor and weapons you can. I take it your below level 10? If thats so then you wont really start making good money till your lvl 10-12. Dwarven armor sells at around 200 per chest and 150 per grieves, and orcish armor is double that. You should be coming into those two armors on bandits very soon. If you clean out a dungeon, go back and sell everything you can loot off enemies and out of chests. At lvl 12 I bought Barius manor with 5k in Anvil (and I did the quest to clean it up =D) and I just spent 5k on a black horse in Cheydenhal and still have 15k to my name at lvl 18. Ebony Armor and Glass/Ebony weapons sell really well for me from 15-18.

Something I find interesting about the game also is the fact that when you get expert mercentile (which only takes about 100000 years from the speed its moving for me using haggle) then you can invest money in stores. It really makes the game feel long term when you think about it. I kinda hope they release some kind of expansion pack for this game so that it doesn't have to end after the main quest.

deicist

Use the sigil stone you got at the end of the oblivion section to enchant a weapon or armor. If it's something cool then keep it, if not you should be able to sell it for a fair amount. The best enchantment (IMO) is 'absorb health'. As long as you keep it charged up you shouldn't ever run into problems. Ayelid ruins (marked by circle type icons on your map) have Weylkland stones and varla stones in them. The former are plentiful and worth 50 each, the latter are hard to find but worth 1000 each. Some ayelid ruins also have statues in them, when you find one of them and sell it a collector gets in touch with you with a quest that can net you a lot of cash. Once you get up to level 7 or so bandits and random NPCs in dungeons will have Dwarven armor which is worth a fair bit, so stay on that level (ie: don't rest and level up for a bit) and just dungeon raid for a while. Or you can level up to around 9-10 (I'm not 100% sure) and Orcish armor will start to appear, which is worth even more.

GHoosdum

Cyclonite wrote:

It opens up after the first little part, no worries. I think they did the uber-linear thing just to help you learn the controls and not be overwhelmed anymore than you already are.

By the way, I closed my first Oblivion gate yesterday. Any pointers for making a bit of money, so I can get some training? Well, any pointers in general at this juncture? Thanks! =)

Here's what I do for money: pick up absolutely everything of value when I'm dungeon-crawling. When I'm over-encumbered, I ditch the things that have the worst value-to-weight ratio. I'm usually left with a bunch of relatively high-value weapons and armor, along with a bunch of reagents. With those, I sell the more valuable ones whole, and for the ones with little value, I make them into potions. Then I sell the potions, which for cheap reagents are usually worth more than the reagents were worth. I have no idea how many cheap Restore Fatigue potions I've made so far (all the food in crates around town is usually free for the taking, and I think it respawns every few days).

A good item to pick up for me has been arrows. Iron arrows, even though they're only worth 1 septim each, have a value-to-weight ratio of 10-to-1. I pick up every single arrow I find. Then, when I visit a shop, I sell all of them except for what I need to carry. Even for a shopkeeper with a relatively low disposition and a haggle bar that says the shopkeeper is buying around 38% of item's value, an arrow that is worth 1 septim will still sell for 1 septim, because 1 is the floor. So if you've got 250 arrows in your inventory, they only weigh 25, and you can sell them for a full 250 septims no matter what.

Also, as the shopkeeper's disposition toward me goes up, I slowly raise the haggle bar for that shopkeeper, until I'm getting the absolute most I can for each item that I sell. If you do enough business with the same shopkeepers, their disposition will hit 100 toward you.

So far, I haven't paid for any training. Skills like Athletics, Sneak, and Acrobatics raise pretty quickly just by walking, sneaking, and jumping around in a variety of situations. I also go up in Restoration and Destruction pretty fast during fights. Blade and Light Armor goes up slowly during fighting, and Armorer goes up pretty quickly afterward. Alchemy goes up pretty quickly too with all the Restore Fatigues I'm making (then selling) out of the food.

deicist

I've only really noticed this over the last couple of days, but the 'Novice-apprentice-journeyman' etc rankings on your major skills really do have some good effects. For example, once you reach journeyman of Heavy armor, your armor degrades 50% slower. When you go through the different ranks of Blade you get more power moves. To do power moves hold your attack button and press a direction. pressing forward lunges (with a chance of staggering your opponent at apprentice and above) backwards sweeps (with a chance of knocking your enemy down at expert and above) and side slashes (with a chance of disarming your oppponent). A master of sneak can run or walk while sneaking without being spotted.... and every skill has these bonuses for the rankings.

primesuspect

A couple of tips that have worked for me so far:

• sneak as much as possible, even in town, to build up "free" sneak skill. When you're not sneaking, run and jump as much as possible. Just jumping around on tables, chairs, steps, statues, etc can really build up your acrobatics and athletics skills quickly.
• master the speechcraft minigame as fast as you can. the very first thing I do when I talk to a person is engage in the speechcraft minigame. You'll soon find that you are really, really fast at it, and you can easily get 75-80 disposition with everybody you talk to in under a minute. This helps with a lot of things, most notably haggling and getting good info.
• Read all the books and papers on shelves that you can find. once in a while you'll read a book that will increase one of your skills

deicist

How to..... Join various guilds.

Thiefs guild: Look at one of the many posters scattered around the imperial city about the 'Grey fox'. Talk to a beggar (any beggar) and bribe them / use the face game to raise their disposition. Once their disposition reaches a certain level if you ask about the gray fox they'll say something like 'You want to find the gray fox?'. Say 'yes I want to work with him' and they'll tell you how to meet him...and thus begins your life of crime being a member of the thiefs guild gives you access to stolen goods fences, who will (unsuprisingly) buy stolen goods from you, and can thus be a good source of cash.

Fighters Guild: Join at any of the fighters guild chapters. There's one in Anvil, one in Bruma and another two (not sure of the locations atm). You advance through the fighters guild in the traditional manner (ie: do various quests and advance through ranks). I'm not 100% sure of the benefits being in the fighters guild gets you, other than money from the quests. I'm guessing you can get cheaper weapon / armor repairs from guild members though.

Mages guild: As with the fighters guild, you can join at any chapter. To advance through the mages guild you need a recommendation from each chapter house. You get the recommendation by doing a task for each chapter house leader. Once you have all 4 recommendations you gain access to the arcane university where you can enchant weapons and recharge previously enchanted weapons (for a price).

note: In oblivion (unlike morrowind) you can join both the fighters guild and the mages guild with no problems. Well, none that I've noticed so far.

Other factions:

Dark brotherhood: Kill someone in cold blood (ie: attack them first) and next time you rest a dark brotherhood member will approach you with a task... I've not done these missions yet, but according to a friend they're very good, and yeild some excellent items (armor etc..)

Knights of the white pennant: Go see the Duke of Anvil, he'll give you the first task in this series. Once you are a knight, you can cash in 'black bows' taken from bandits for 100 gold each. I've not got very far with this line of quests, so there's probably other benefits too.

The arena: Probably the most straightforward set of missions. Just go to the Arena and sign up with the blademaster. Once you've reached grand champion status (see my earlier post about fighting the gray prince) you can do weekly fights against various monsters for quite a lot of cash. For example I just fought 2 ogres and a land dreugh for 2000+ gold. Easy money

GHoosdum

Another joinable faction is the "Order of Virtuous Blood" - once your fame is high enough, you can be invited by a character who is walking around in the Imperial City. Once you complete the first quest for the Order, any time you bring them Vampire Dust, they give you 250 septims.

lemonlime

GHoosdum wrote:

Another joinable faction is the "Order of Virtuous Blood" - once your fame is high enough, you can be invited by a character who is walking around in the Imperial City. Once you complete the first quest for the Order, any time you bring them Vampire Dust, they give you 250 septims.

I joined up with the order.. made a ton of gold on vampire dust (like 4K almost now)

Merlyn

If you're looking for lots of easy gold on a long-term basis...,

you can cheeze it by getting really good at alchemy. Basically you buy ingredients and sell potions - in bulk - doesn't matter what the potions do really. Once you get to max alchemy skill, the potions are even easier to make and more cost effective. Get some money this way, buy a house, drop off all your other stuff other than alchemy supplies (run around mostly naked crazy potion dealer). Travel to each of a few hot spots that tend to sell ingredients - your route should be long enough to allow enough game time to pass to have your first stop restocked by the time you've done a cycle, or do two different cycles in alternation. If you're a dark elf, Fellan Rellas in the Anvil mage's guild can be convinced that you're awesome and she'll buy all your potions 600 gold per transaction for decent prices.

lemonlime

Merlyn wrote:

run around mostly naked crazy potion dealer

LMAO!

Good tips Merlyn.. I noticed my alchemy skill rising very quickly when making potions.. seems to go up when you eat a bunch of ingredients too!

Welcome to Short-Media!

primesuspect

A basic lockpicking tip that nobody told me. I was having a lot of trouble picking locks to get into people's homes / shops at night, because I was always getting caught. However, once I realized that if you enter sneak mode, and keep an eye on the "eyeball" cursor, it becomes simple. Crouch down in front of a door that you want to pick, and wait for the eyeball cursor to fade away. When it is faded, that means no one can see you. If it's solid, don't pick the lock, you'll get caught.

RTFM I suppose, but I never do, so this was immensely helpful to me when I figured it out

GHoosdum

Right - since the game goes into 'pause' mode while you're using the lockpick minigame, if the eye is faded, you won't be seen during your picking stint - in other words, nobody can catch you in the act, as long as you start out unseen in sneak mode.

Also, here's a semi-spoiler on lockpicking:

The tone of the tumbler popping changes ever so slightly for the times the tumbler is going to stay up a bit longer - this is prime time to click that tumber up. Basically, anyone with even a low security skill can pick any lock, even a 'very hard' lock - just get familiar with the sound it makes when it falls quickly and the sound it makes with it stays up a bit... Listen for that tone change and when you hear it, click. All the security skill really does is make the tumblers go into the 'hanging up' mode more often.

primesuspect

I swear it's almost impossible to be 100% "good" in this game. It seems like many of the quests involve committing crimes, mostly of the lockpicking/trespassing variety. I gave up on trying to lead the moral life, and now I'm a member of the Thieves Guild as well as on the Dark Brotherhood entry quest

primesuspect

On that note. Here's a minor tip, if you're really good at your acrobatics, and you're pretty patient.

you can get a better bow than the iron bow pretty early in the game from one of the "archer" imperial guards. Commit a crime on the waterfront at night, there's only one guard on duty. Jump up to a roof in the shantytown and keep slowly pegging away at the guard until he dies. Take his Fine Steel bow and do the jail time. It's worth it, especially early in the game.

deicist

Here's another tip:

I didn't test this much, but I don't think stolen gold is taken off you when you're arrested. So if you pickpocket someone who has a lot of gold, you only pay the fine and get to keep the gold you stole. For example, the guy wandering round the imperial city market district with a warhammer on his back (can't remember his name). I pickpocketed him, got 690ish gold then paid 25 gold on arrest... well worth it

primesuspect

Plus, if you have a bounty on your head, and you are a member of the thieves guild, the bounty is cut in half if you can make it to Armand without getting jacked

primesuspect

Another tip:

I have heavy armor as a major skill, so thievery is sometimes difficult. All I do when I decide to sneak around is get totally naked - just unequip all your heavy armor and then sneaking gets a LOT easier. If things heat up (guard dog for example), quickly equip all your armor and voila - you are an ass kicker.

This way you can play sort of a Heavy Armor Thief

GHoosdum

primesuspect wrote:

Another tip:

I have heavy armor as a major skill, so thievery is sometimes difficult. All I do when I decide to sneak around is get totally naked - just unequip all your heavy armor and then sneaking gets a LOT easier. If things heat up (guard dog for example), quickly equip all your armor and voila - you are an ass kicker.

This way you can play sort of a Heavy Armor Thief

I think the ability to sneak in armor is mostly based on the shoes you're wearing. If you take off your boots only, it *might* have the same effect.

primesuspect

but i look so goofy in heavy armor and bare feet!

deicist

Something that I didn't bother putting in earlier because I thought everyone knew it already, but has since been pointed out to me:

Everything (near enough) in the game is levelled based on your current level.

What does this mean? well...for example, in an earlier post I mentioned that the grey prince (arena grand champion) has an elven longsword that you can get by defeating him. He only has that elven longsword if your level is above a certain number. So if you defeat him when you're a level 4 character you'll only get steel (or something) sword. The same goes for pretty much every item in game. NPCs (bandits, marauders, dremora, everyone else) have their equipment and their stats based on your current level so don't be suprised if you see a bandit with a steel longsword early in the game suddenly upgrade to a dwarven longsword when you're a bit further into the game.

Tasslehoof

Hey, just signed up for the Oblivion forums, I was wondering if anyone else was having difficulty in the castle in Kvatch after the Oblivion Gate is closed. I can't seem to get through the whole thing, I was wondering if I should go level and then try and do it since I'm only level 2 (close to 3).

Cyclonite

I did it at level 2, and it wasn't too difficult. Make sure your armor is repaired, and you get your timing on blocking down.

GHoosdum

Tasslehoof wrote:

Hey, just signed up for the Oblivion forums, I was wondering if anyone else was having difficulty in the castle in Kvatch after the Oblivion Gate is closed. I can't seem to get through the whole thing, I was wondering if I should go level and then try and do it since I'm only level 2 (close to 3).

Actually, that will only get harder as you level up. I started the Kvatch missions when I was level 2 or 3, and we only had to face a few scamps in the church courtyard. I came back to finish it at level 15 and the place was crawling with Daedroths, Clannfear, and Spider Daedra. Basically, I had to notch the difficulty slider back to about 1/4 of the way up the bar in order to beat that section, then return it to its default setting afterward.

deicist

Tasslehoof wrote:

Hey, just signed up for the Oblivion forums, I was wondering if anyone else was having difficulty in the castle in Kvatch after the Oblivion Gate is closed. I can't seem to get through the whole thing, I was wondering if I should go level and then try and do it since I'm only level 2 (close to 3).

You might find if you level up it gets harder, since the quality and number of your enemies will increase to match your level. I've heard of people leaving the Kvatch battle until level 10+ and getting swamped by demonic legions. There's probably a 'sweet spot' where your skills and stats give you an edge, but I couldn't tell you where it is. Also remember that the levelling doesn't take your equipment into account so you could leave the main quest for a bit and go find some sweet weapons / armour before coming back to it.

deicist

Just started playing through the dark brotherhood quests so here's a couple of (probably very obvious) tips:

1) Always, always try to get the bonus. There's one available for most of the quests, and they're well worth the extra effort. You'll usually be told how to get the bonus at the start of the mission and, although it can seem incredibly hard, there will always be a logical and easy once you know how way to do them.

2) Don't rush in. The dark brotherhood is all about skulking in shadows and striking when the enemy least expects it. The dark brotherhood quests are structured accordingly. You'll find the quests much easier if you take your time and learn NPC's routes and building layouts before blindly rushing in and killing everyone.

3) Since you're taking your time anyway make sure you have a look around. In one mission which involves killing 5 people, each person had around 600 gold on them, and the chests in the building the quest took place in were fairly full of nice items.